Deep Red (1975)
Directed by Dario Argento
An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.
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If you're still keeping score, this is the Vertigo moment; as Robin Wood described in his remarkable prologue to the last edition of Hitchcock Films Revisited, the way Wood continued to evolve in his reading of Vertigo corresponded with his own awakening to his sexuality.
Argento, because he's in control at this point and knows it, literally drops a pair of red curtains (vaginal lips as stage affectation) on the scene before inexplicably cutting away to water circling a drain, an image that will never again be innocuous post- Psycho .
Throughout, too, symbols of penetration (knives, glass, knitting needles in a scene where a woman fends off an attacker--but not before she kills a pet bird (The Birds!)) merge with images of water, submersion, saliva, and, yes, menstruation.
If you're keeping score, so far it's Psycho , Stage Fright , and a small, not-insignificant detour into Un chien andalou, maybe.
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He's seen something he can't quite remember (like many of Argento's heroes, but particularly Deep Red's) but thinks holds the key to solving the crime.
Former Italian film critic and screenwriter Dario Argento's ("Deep Red"/"Suspiria"/"Tenebre") debut directorial effort is in this slasher film with a twisty Hitchcock-like ending; it's a well-crafted and well-photographed film thanks to the great cinematographer Vittorio Storaro; it's Argento's most accessible film before going all out for shooting gore and sleaze for shock effect; unfortunately it's basically an empty experience that's short on ideas.
But let us not permit foreknowledge of the dire 1998 version of The Phantom of the Opera to stand in the way of appreciating the director's first work, one of the most self-assured debuts of all time, a work so certain in its conception and execution that almost 40 years later I'd still quickly rank it as one of Argento's three finest pictures (alongside 1975's Deep Red and 1977's Suspiria ).
Sam plays an American writer though his occupation seems tangential to the film’s plot; not until 1975’s Deep Red would occupational angst become a potent element of an Argento narrative.
The elements of Argento's “animal trilogy” ( The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , Cat O' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet ) don't particularly lend themselves to explanations within any system of associations implied by the rest of the filmic experience.
Unlike The Cat O' Nine Tails , there's no silly scientific rationale here for the film's murders (indeed, there are no easy answers).
He'd just completed his "animal" trilogy of gialli ( The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , The Cat O' Nine Tails , Four Flies on Grey Velvet) and nursed a belief that the genre had, if not run its course entirely, at least run its course for him.
Arrow Video goes 3-for-3 with Dario Argento in 2018, as the label follows up its recent Blu-ray releases of the Italian filmmaker’s ‘70s gems The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (reviewed here ) and The Cat o’ Nine Tails (covered here ) with a film that bests even that potent pair.
He'd just completed his "animal" trilogy of gialli ( The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , The Cat O' Nine Tails , Four Flies on Grey Velvet) and nursed a belief that the genre had, if not run its course entirely, at least run its course for him.
The elements of Argento's “animal trilogy” ( The Bird with the Crystal Plumage , Cat O' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet ) don't particularly lend themselves to explanations within any system of associations implied by the rest of the filmic experience.
Though one of Argento’s lesser known works, in part because Paramount chose for decades not to allow its release for the home market, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is in fact a key film in the giallo king’s oeuvre, representing a crucial bridge between his earlier, more conventional mystery thrillers and his subsequent explorations of the oneiric, the outrageous and the irrational (in films like Deep Red, Suspiria and Phenomena ).
When it comes to suspense and blood and gore, there is plenty implied, but the moments of horror are not quite as striking as they are in, say, Deep Red or Tenebre (Four Flies on Grey Velvet shares key plot points with both of those later Argento gialli) — however, there is some good creep-factor in the use of masks and puppetry, shiny, sharp blades, and chortling over-the-phone taunts.
There are elements here that work extremely well including the camera work and overall atmosphere that Argento would use to far greater effect just a few years later in Deep Red .